socks math at preschool

I had a 'fun with math theme' at preschool to plan for. I really prefer a more specific topic!  I have some domino activities that I'd like to get in, but I don't think we're ready for them.  We enjoy the story A Pair of Socks at our house and I've used it with little people several times.  I've used this book even with my second graders one year, but it's really a preschool book.  It about a little sock looking for his match.  

 I had all the preschool friends wear a pair of silly (or colored) socks to school this day.  I had several extra pairs from my own kiddos in case some came unprepared.  During circle time, we talked about everyone's different socks and I had each friend complete the sentence, "____'s socks...."  If we were farther along in the year, I might have them broken up their sentences for them for another activity.   I also could have turned it into a class book, but everything lately seems like it could be a class book, so I'm being selective.

Then we all threw the extra socks into a basket and shook them up.  It turns out that my own kids have an unusual amount of decorative socks.  I may have a problem.  We spread the on the floor and one or two kids at a time searched for matches.  I had the kids hang them up on our drying rack, but it proved difficult.  The kids had a hard time opening and holding open the clothespins to fit on the drying rack bars.  We counted the socks repeatedly as more kids added socks.  Counting by two could also have been done with older friends.

Here are a few pages I've used to extend this book to older kiddos in the past.  I didn't need any of these pages this time around.  One page lets the kids decorate socks to make pairs, one has then find and circle pairs and the other has them count how many sock would be in different numbers of pairs.  They are just pages that I've drawn. 

Thankfully from now through the end of the year, our topics are more specific.  Apples, Bees, Bears, etc.  It much easier that way.